Christy O'Connor: Kerry's divisional superpowers reap rich harvests of dominance

POWERHOUSES: David Clifford East Kerry in action against Nathan Breen of Mid Kerry during the Kerry County Senior Football Championship Final match between East Kerry and Mid Kerry at Austin Stack Park last year. Pic: Domnick Walsh © Eye Focus LTD.
When East Kerry won three Kerry senior titles in a row between 1997-99, they didn’t care that they scraped over the line by one point against Feale Rangers in the 1999 final. The previous year, East Kerry had won their four championship matches by an aggregate margin of 28 points. Feale Rangers pushed them to the limit in that decider but that result still didn’t disguise how dominant East Kerry were at that time – they’d won their three previous championship games in 1999 by an aggregate of 22 points.
Over two decades on, East Kerry’s dominance has been broadly similar. Going for four titles in five seasons, they have won their last 11 championship matches in 2022 and 2023 by a staggering aggregate margin of 80 points. They’ve only really been stretched to the limit in two of those 11 games, in last year’s quarter and semi-final by Kenmare Shamrocks and Dingle.